“The issue of climate change is no longer environmental, but economic,” says Izabella Teixeira, Minister of the Environment in Brazil. Hence, a compromise between economics and environmentalists is necessary for the full development of the country, where green and environmental friendly activities can be seen as attractive investments, as opposed to enemies of economic development.

In efforts to build a reliable system of international commitment to reduce pollution, the United Nations’ Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon created, in 2012, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). This network encompasses a global and independent research center that encourages the advancement of technology in the area of sustainability. It specifically relies on the mobilization of civil society, private companies and international organizations to create an open platform for conservation initiatives. Brazilian environmentalist, Israel Kablin, who is president of the Brazilian Foundation of Sustainable Development and a member of the SDSN lead specialists panel said “We need to develop and implement practical solutions based on scientific development,” .

In support of the economic approach to environmentalism, Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Eduardo Frickmann Young developed an environment project that measures the opportunity cost of deforestation in monetary terms, making it possible to envision and quantify the consequences of deforestation. His method of study is measured in one unit of Reference Barusco, (URB in Portuguese) which corresponds to R$300 million and is adjusted according to the fertility, climate, and biodiversity of a given land. With this form of measurement, Young was able to develop the concept of payment through environmental services, (known as PSA), which has the main objective of attributing value to the services humans extract from nature. Young also believes that one of Brazil’s biggest mistakes is its late adherence to the market of CO2. This market was adopted by China and India and it provided a more balanced economic trade off with the purchase of the “right to pollute” from companies producing under the pollution cap established by the Kyoto Protocol. He says that the market was the first step to materialize the environment, which is what people often do. According to Young’s study, the cost to completely end deforestation in Brazil is around R$5.2 billion per year for fifteen years. With his calculation, we would save 205,000 square kilometers of forest conservation, 5.6 million tons of carbonic gas, and achieve the goals from the Paris Agreement to help curb the effects of global warming.